Above all else, Westover is a diverse community of scholars and a gathering of students and teachers whose shared efforts and goals result in a broad, deep, and durable education. Teachers meet regularly with students in what we call 'conferences', one-on-one sessions in which ideas are exchanged, concepts clarified, questions pondered, and student-teacher relationships created, extended, and energized. Through the instruction and the example of their teachers and, more importantly, of one another, students learn how to read, how to write, how to reason, how to ask meaningful questions, how to make good decisions, and ultimately how to take responsibility for their own ongoing education. Living and learning together in such close proximity, students come naturally to share, to support, and to celebrate one another.

In spite of the many new facilities added since Westover's founding in 1907, the Main Building, organized around a central, garden-like quadrangle, remains the single greatest influence on the school's character and ethos. Housing most of the classrooms and administrative offices, the Chapel, the Dining Hall, and all of the dormitory spaces, the Main Building and its unique architecture foster and shape a close and unified community. Red Hall, for example, is large enough to seat the entire school on its soft crimson carpet during Morning Assembly and is often used as a rehearsal or performance space and a venue for special presentations. Yet its lamp lit tables are also a favorite spot for study or for meeting with teachers and tutors. The Chapel's superb acoustics make a perfect space for rehearsing the seventy voice Glee Club, but also an intimate practice space for a single violinist. During the weekly chapel service on Thursday morning, the same space comfortably holds the entire school community.

Now, of course, newer buildings have added space and improved the quality and scope of already existent programs originally housed in the versatile Main Building. Among these additions are the Health Center, various visual arts spaces housing drawing, painting, and sculpture classes, Lee House (the Head of School's home, located right on the campus), the Whittaker Library and Science Building, the Fuller Athletic Center, and the newly completed Louise Bulkley Dillingham Performing Arts Center. All of these facilities, old and new, mirror and support our philosophy. These structures inspire pride, ambition, independence, and excellence.